Kana guided Aster and Alice upstairs, the mansion was quite big and they saw a lot of rooms along the way, including a library which caught Aster’s attention but right now it was not the time for that, they arrived to a room which was protected by a pair of female guards.
The two women saw Kana and they opened the door to let them enter, Aster’s sense of smell was quite sharp so he immediately detected a strong medicine fragrance in the air, the room was quite simple there was only a nightstand a little table with a pair of chairs and finally a small bed on which a woman was laying.
They approached the bed and the woman smiled when she noticed Kana.
“You little girl, your father came all they way from the capital to here because you wanted to see the forest”, said the woman in a warm tone.
Kana sat on the border of the bed and grabbed her mother’s hands.
“Don’t worry about that mom, how do you feel today?”.
The woman coughed a couple of times before answering.
“Not too bad, especially since both you and your father are here”, she said.
Kana sighed, although her mother was not getting worse… she was not getting better also, she shook her little head and turned to see Aster.
“Mom let me present you my new friends, they have received the blessing of the forest, I just met them not too long ago but they are good people”.
The woman also turned her head with a bit of difficulty to see Aster and Alice before saying.
“My name is Sarina Millefiore, please be patient with my daughter”.
Sarina had long blonde hair similar to Kana but her eyes were green, her skin was a bit too pale maybe because she was sick but she didn’t look bad, frail will be the correct way to describe her.
Alice smiled; she took the initiative to present herself before her brother this time.
“Alice Drage, don’t worry Kana is a good girl so it’s easy to get along with her”.
Aster was about to speak when he noticed little black spots on Kana’s mother hands, they gave him the same feeling as the creature that tried to imitate Alice.
Sarina noticed Aster’s gaze.
“So, you are the blessed one? Still for you to recognize it so soon, I wonder how close you fought against a corrupted”, she asked.
Aster shook his head.
“I didn’t want to be rude, I’m Aster Drage… regarding your question I personally held the thing that tried to trick me”.
Sarina’s eyes widened a bit, she doubted for a moment.
“C-can you show me your hands?”.
Aster noticed her worried expression and he did as she told.
Sarina carefully inspected his hands and she was surprised by the result.
“They are completely fine, you are probably not a native of Prasil or you wouldn’t have touched a corrupted with your bare hands, my condition is the result of that”.
Aster didn’t really worry about that, his physic was really abnormal due to his bloodline and the paragon body, up to this day he hasn’t gotten sick not even once, he even tested some strong poisons and they didn’t work on him whether he applied them on his skin, drank them or if they were directly injected in his bloodstream.
There was other thing that might have protected him from being infected by whatever that black thing corrupting the creature was… Rigel’s flame which could refine basically everything, when he fought against that thing little particles of the flame were floating in the air ready to activate in case of a surprise attack, this was the new method of training Aster was using to further improve his control.
Aster smiled, “a friend is better than just being a guest, I will just give them a hint, if she wants my help then we’ll see how things go”, he thought.
Helping others might sound wonderful and all that, but in reality, offering your help to people you just met without being asked to, is a source of problems, especially in cases where there is something important at risk, that’s why instead of directly suggesting it he gave Sarina a little hint.
“I didn’t know that, we are not from this planet, luckily I have a strong constitution since I was born with a unique attribute which also protects me, maybe that’s why I wasn’t affected”.
Kana remembered the weird flames that covered her tent and she jumped a couple of times.
“He is right mom, big brother Aster’s flames are awesome, they are not hot so you can touch them”.
She turned to see Aster before saying, “can you show my mom your flames please!!!”
Aster smiled, a small blue flame appeared in his hand, Kana immediately used her finger to poke the flame, of course her finger went through it, after a moment she took it out and there weren’t any burns nor any wounds on it.
Kana kept playing with Rigel’s flames while Aster was thinking on other things, at some point Robert also entered Sarina’s room and he saw his daughter joyfully playing with a blue flame, while his wife and the kid he met not too long ago seemed to be lost in their thoughts.
“Ahem, Kana… what is that?”, he said.
Kana stopped tossing Rigel’s flame around and answered.
“These are big brother Aster’s flames, they are funny to play with because they aren’t hot, in fact they give a fresh feeling when you touch them”.
Sarina stepped in the conversation.
“Robert, did you know this kid actually killed a corrupted with his bare hands?”.
The Archduke’s eyes showed a bit of worry which disappeared when his wife spoke again.
“He isn’t affected by the corruption due to the blue flames Kana is playing with right now”.
Robert immediately took the little flame away from his daughter before turning to see Aster.
“Kid… is that true?”.
Aster knew what Kana’s father was going to say, he didn’t mind trying but he needed to explain the risks.
“Yes, my flames are special, as you can feel they don’t burn but…”, he created a little piece of flame on his left hand and made it slightly touch the wall of the room, Robert saw a little amount of dust falling to the ground before the flame disappeared leaving behind a little hole in the wall.
“My flames are used to refine things… I guess I could use them to purify the fluids of the corrupted ones, it took me a lot of train to get this level of control and I can assure you that on surfaces there is no danger, you could even swim in them, but I haven’t tried to use them inside other people bodies”, the flame in Robert’s hand suddenly flew away and it was absorbed by Aster’s body.
Sarina smiled.
“Can you try removing the corruption that is already showing in my skin?”.
Aster nodded but the Archduke frowned his eyebrows.
“Sarina, are you sure you want to try it?”.
She nodded, “in any case we don’t lose anything trying, if those flames had a healing attribute the corruption would have already reacted but that is not the case”.
Robert contemplated it for a moment, the reason as to why they weren’t able to remove the corruption was that any medicine created to fight against it made the thing reacted just like when you drop water on hot oil, a strong volatile effect.
With the pass of the years in Luonto the alchemists developed medicine which was not detected by the corruption as an “enemy” but it was not strong enough to remove it from the body, it just half controlled the symptoms.
But Aster’s flame was different, it was strong and it didn’t “harm” the corruption but refined it so there was no reaction at all.
Robert sighed.
“If you can at least lessen the amount of that damn corruption, I would be eternally in debt with you… still I won’t blame you if you don’t want to do it”.
Kana saw Aster with puppy eyes, it didn’t cross her mind that he could help her mother, she was genuinely just curious to play with a new thing like a flame that didn’t burn.
“I know I’m being selfish, but please try it big brother, I… want to be able to play with my mom life before”.
Alice smiled, “he was going to help anyway… whatever some good karma doesn’t hurt from time to time”, she thought before saying.
“Do it, out of all the people we could have met for some reason it was Kana, and they even had Cade with them, if that is not a fated encounter then I don’t know that it is”.
Aster felt a bit weird, at first her sister didn’t want him to be too close with Kana and now she was telling him to help her, “I guess no matter how many lives you have, you would never completely understand women”, he thought.
He approached the bed and a little wisp of flame appeared on his index finger.
“Let’s try with a little amount first”, he said before the flame positioned on a secluded black spot in Sarina’s arm, after a moment the black spot turned into a thin black mist which was then purified by the flame.
Aster stopped and they all waited to see if anything happened.
…
After a couple of minutes nothing happened, well more accurately nothing bad happened because Sarina felt better than before, although the spot seemed to be small, for it to form in the skin it actually required a lot of corruption to concentrate in one place so right now Aster refined quite a bit of it.
Robert immediately noticed the change on his wife, a bit of color returned to her face, he almost shouted out loud due to the sudden happiness he felt.
He turned to see Aster and bowed his head, this man which doesn’t even kneel in front of the king actually bowed his head towards a young man.
“Please help Sarina, I know we are not family and you just met my daughter not too long ago but… if you do it even if you want this old life of mine as compensation, I’m willing to give it to you”.
Aster helped him raise his head.
“I don’t consider myself a hero nor a saint… but I can see how much Kana loves her mother and that is something I can relate to, for me a friend is worth more than any material thing, so how about we take this as the start of a true friendship relation?”.
Robert remained silent for a moment before laughing out loud.
“Hahaha”
“A friend is worth more than any material thing huh? I like how that sounds kid… no Aster, still I might be too old for that, so let’s make it so that you will become “true friends” with my daughter, which means that no matter what, you will always be welcomed in my house”.
Robert was not as innocent as Kana, his daughter might call them friends but how can he accept them after such a little time of knowing them, but now this was a chance to create a real friendship between them.
“Help my wife and get to know my daughter better? tsk what a cunning man”, thought Alice.